Roy Lewis
My Blog.
I started making candle holders out of old (recycled) motorcycle and car parts in the mid 1980's When the government made it illegal to use new metal for the manufacture of non-essential decorative items. I decided to cheat and use cheap new parts I had specially imported from Nantwich, to age the metal I left it inside the boot of an Austin Allegro, it only took a few minutes for the aged look to appear. I did this for a few years stock piling useful parts, once the Allegro was entirely full, including the engine bay, once the engine had been removed, stripped and disposed of over several weeks hidden in the grey wheelie bin.
I started first to design a vast range of candle holders, mixing in copied designs from some of the greats, for example Donatello Da Vinci ( the love child of the better known bean bag designer for Habitat, Leonardo). Not the greatest known candle holder master, but in my opinion his copper one made from plumbing found under the toilet in the Sistine Chapel titled simply `The Holy Grail' is my all time favourite, and an inspiration from an early age.
After I had completed my designs around nine or so years later I started to disassemble the motorcycle and car parts and arrange into categories such as base, stem and finally top turret. I purchased a new welder as over the years technology moved away from steam/electric and over to nano/nuclear, once I had eventually mastered this new welding technique, (losing several sheds in the process!), I assembled my trusty candle holder jig that I had designed and patented in the mid 1970's originally as a Pooper Scooper, but after lengthy customer trials it was found that the Pooper Scoopers Aluminium body corroded and the subsequent Aluminium Oxide caused the dog poo to turn white, so I stopped the trials and kept the patent in the eventuality I would find a cure for this.
Instead I found it was ideal to hold loose metal parts together prior to welding. I was as last ready to make my first of many candle holders, for the first time in over thirteen years. New shed erected, brand new work bench made, new nano/nuclear welder wired in, jig firmly clamping my illegally aged motor parts, I donned my welders apron and mask, struck an arc.
"WHAT THE #*#*#* !!!!!!!". I could not believe my eyes, the cheap parts that I had specially imported from Nantwich were not made from any metal I had come across before, they melted and dripped all over my bench and shed floor, there was familure smell, a smell I had smelt before, not once but many times, "DOG POO !". The motor part factories in Nantwich had found a way of getting rid of all the dog poo before my patented Pooper Scooper had turned it all white.
All those years wasted, all that time and money gone, a perfectly good Austin Allegro ruined (well maybe not the Allegro),what was I going to do now?
I had no choice.( To fund my grand master plan over the years I repaired and serviced cars and motorcycles), I had inadvertently collected eight tonnes of used parts, so I used them instead........